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(Intellect) Intellect and the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) have today expressed their disappointment at the EU Commission's expected decision to approve the proposed Audio Visual Content Directive. In its current form the legislation will result in increased regulatory burden for the content and new media industry with little benefit to business or consumers. The linear/ non-linear split may be a useful conceptual framework for policy makers but it doesn't reflect the nature of the new interactive, on-demand, IP-based services, such as IPTV, Video on Demand, and mobile TV under development.
(RAPID) The European Commission has published a Staff Discussion Paper on the application of EC Treaty competition rules on the abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82). The Discussion Paper is designed to promote a debate as to how EU markets are best protected from dominant companies' exclusionary conduct, conduct which risks weakening competition on a market. The paper suggests a framework for the continued rigorous enforcement of Article 82, building on the economic analysis carried out in recent cases, and setting out one possible methodology for the assessment of some of the most common abusive practices, such as tying, and rebates and discounts. Other forms of abuse, such as discriminatory and exploitative conduct, will be the subject of further work by the Commission in 2006. The Commission is inviting comments on the discussion paper by 31 March 2006.
(RAPID) The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of UK telecommunications company O2 by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica. The Commission was concerned that the acquisition would result in distortions of competition in the market for international roaming services, in particular in the UK. In order to remove the Commission's concerns, Telefónica has undertaken to leave the FreeMove alliance. In light of this commitment, the Commission has concluded that the transaction will not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any part of it.
(RAPID) The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation under EC Treaty state aid rules into subsidies for digital decoders granted by Italy in 2004 and 2005. The measures provide public grants to buyers of decoders which receive programmes in digital terrestrial technology. The subsidy is not technology-neutral because although it is also offered for decoders using cable technology, it is not available for decoders using satellite broadcasting. The Commission's investigation will aim at establishing whether these incentives are liable to distort competition. The Commission received two complaints from terrestrial and satellite television operators.
(RAPID) The European Commission has published a Green Paper on how to facilitate actions for damages caused by violations of EC Treaty competition rules. The Green Paper identifies certain obstacles to actions for damages by injured parties in national courts, such as access to evidence and the quantification of damages, and presents various options for debate for their removal. Comments on the Green Paper can be submitted by 21 April 2006. see also frequently asked questions.
(Guardian) The European commission significantly raised the stakes in its protracted legal battle with Microsoft by threatening to fine the world's biggest software group €2m a day for non-compliance with anti-trust sanctions. The commission, which fined Microsoft a record €497m in March 2004, chose the first anniversary of the decision by the court of first instance (CFI), Europe's second-highest court, to demand the group immediately enacted 'interim remedies' (the sanctions), pending a full appeal. see Commission Press Release.
(Guardian) The merger of cable giants NTL and Telewest and BSkyB's acquisition of broadband company Easynet were both cleared today by the competition watchdog. The Office of Fair Trading decided neither deal needed to be referred to the Competition Commission.
(New York Times) New York's attorney general is investigating whether the four record companies that dominate the industry have violated antitrust laws in the pricing of songs sold online. Eliot Spitzer's office recently began serving subpoenas on the major record companies. The companies are Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal; Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann; the EMI Group; and the Warner Music Group.
(Reuters) China is winning the war on Internet pornography but it will be hard to eradicate entirely as many Web sites are based outside of the country, a senior police official said. China routinely blocks access to Internet sites on sensitive subjects such as self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as its own, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations, which were crushed by the military with heavy loss of life. Regulations also target sites that publish fabricated information and content deemed to harm national security. Police had detained 221 people and shut down almost 600 domestic pornographic Web sites as of the end of November.
(New York Times) Microsoft has shut the blog site of a well-known Chinese blogger who uses its MSN online service in China after he discussed a high-profile newspaper strike. The decision is the latest in a series of measures in which some of America's biggest technology companies have cooperated with the Chinese authorities to censor Web sites and curb dissent or free speech online as they seek access to China's booming Internet marketplace. See alos Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger (Rebecca MacKinnon).
(Heise) Ein Internet-Anbieter muss 15.000 Euro wegen unzulässiger und jugendgefährdender Angebote im Netz zahlen. Die Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM) verhängte ein entsprechendes Bußgeld. Außerdem dürfe der Anbieter die Seiten der insgesamt 15 Angebote nicht weiter im Internet verbreiten. Mittlerweile liefen mehr als 40 Verfahren gegen bayerische Internet-Anbieter, erläuterte BLM-Präsident Wolf-Dieter Ring.
(Guardian) mBlox, the company that supplied the Crazy Frog ringtone for mobile phone users has been fined £40,000 by the premium rate telephone services regulator Icstis and told to pay back consumers who were unaware they had signed up for a subscription service. The Crazy Frog phenomenon took the country by storm during summer and spawned a number one hit - a UK-first for a ringtone. Thousands of mobile phone users, particularly children, texted the company to download the catchy tone. Many thought they were buying a one-off product, unaware they were signing up to a subscription service that would cost them up to £5 a week.
(Outlaw.com) Nominet UK, the national registry for all .uk domain names, has been awarded AUD $1.3 million (£550,000) in damages following a data mining scam that led to thousands of Nominet registrants receiving misleading domain name notices. The case dates back to January 2003, when Nominet discovered that its WHOIS database - which lists domain names and their owners - had been subjected to unauthorised data mining. The details of registrants were 'scraped' from Nominet's database and 50,000 registrants received misleading notices from an outfit calling itself UK Internet Registry.
(INDICARE) by Cornelia Kutterer, BEUC, Brussels, Belgium. This article explains the reasoning behind BEUC's 'Campaign on Consumers Digital Rights'. Current international IPR policy, in particular that of the European Union is perceived as a danger to established rights of consumers.
(INDICARE) An independent institute was commissioned by BEUC to investigate the limitations that may be present on purchased music downloads from major online suppliers and in particular, how these limitations restrict the consumer's traditional ability to transfer their music between platforms and players. INDICARE analysed the resulting Technical Report, and came to the conclusion, that the right findings were provided in the right form for the public, thus good 'educational material' was produced for consumers.
(Atelier.fr) Un comité de pilotage du projet de la bibliothèque numérique européenne (BNE) s'est réuni mercredi 11 janvier. Pour la France, la BNE doit être ouverte avant la fin du premier trimestre 2006. La France compte sur l'arrivée de plusieurs pays européens dans le projet pour créer un fonds bibliothécaire européen à proprement parler.
(EUobserver.com) he EU Council, the member states' decision-making body, has decided to open its doors to parts of its meetings, in a move that has been termed by the European Commission as crucial in regaining the trust of Europe's citizens. EU member states agreed to hold discussions and votes on EU legislation, under the so-called co-decision procedure, in public with immediate effect. Thes decision does not cover policy areas which fall outside the co-decision procedure, such as most justice and home affairs legislation, nor does it cover non-legislative acts such as decisions on foreign policy. The move is also restricted to the council's first deliberations after the European Commission has presented its proposal, as well as its "final" deliberations that take place once the European Parliament has submitted its opinion.
(CNET News.com) Dozens of U.S. senators are quietly tracking visits to their Web sites even though they have publicly pledged not to do so. Sixty-six politicians in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are setting permanent Web cookies even though at least 23 of them have promised not to use the online tracking technique. see also Government Web sites are keeping an eye on you
(RAPID) Mr Ján Figel´, Member of the European Commission responsible for Education, training, culture and multilingualism. Welcome address to the eTwinning conference; Linz, 13 January 2006.
(ITU) At the second phase of WSIS in Tunis, the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society called for the establishment of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in paragraphs 72 - 79. The first meeting of the IGF will take place in Greece in 2006. The first consultations on the convening of the IGF will take place in Geneva, Switzerland on 16 and 17 February 2006. Additional information can be found at www.intgovforum.org.
(OUT-LAW News) Chartered engineer Nigel Roberts became the first person to win a court judgment over a company's breach of the UK's anti-spam law. His success received widespread media coverage - and now he's encouraging others to do the same. Roberts sued Media Logistics (UK) Ltd, a marketing firm based in Falkirk, Scotland, for sending him unsolicited emails about contract car hire and fax broadcasting businesses.
(CNET News.com) A divided federal appeals court has ducked the question of whether a French court order censoring Nazi-related materials can apply to Yahoo's U.S.-based Web site. In a case that pits European restrictions on 'hate speech' against the values of free expression enshrined by the United States' First Amendment, a slender 6-5 majority of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Yahoo's case involving the online display of Nazi-related books, posts and memorabilia.
(BAJ) Das Online-Handbuch erläutert wichtige Begriffe des Kinder- und Jugendschutzes und ist im Zusammenhang mit der Erarbeitung des von der Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Kinder- und Jugendschutz herausgegebenen und von Bruno W. Nikles, Sigmar Roll, Dieter Spürck und Klaus Umbach bei Luchterhand verfassten Kommentars zum Jugendschutzrecht entstanden. Das Handbuch folgt der Idee, von den Begriffen ausgehend, weitere Hinweise auf Informationen zum Kinder- und Jugendschutz, auf einschlägige Institutionen und Organisationen, Materialien und Literatur zugänglich zu machen.
(Net Family News) The story resulting from the New York Times's six-month-long investigation starts with Justin Berry, who got his start at age 13 buying a Webcam to meet other teenage friends online. Within weeks he was getting paid $50 'to sit bare-chested in front of his computer for three minutes' for a man who helped him instantly set up a PayPal account. Over five years, Justin developed an audience of 1,500 that paid him 'hundreds of thousands of dollars.' Worse: Justin's activities were only part of the 'Webcam Matrix,' a term dubbed by another teenager cited by the Times, who, also for money, operates his own site of self-published child porn. The Times article is the first I've seen in 8+ years of following reportage on kids and tech pointing to a trend or a generalized pattern of actions and genre of Web sites. The pattern of behavior and sites/blogs, on the teenagers' part, are about money, naivete, the need to connect, or combinations of the above. The pattern of actions on the adults' part are well known to law enforcement. What was much less known is how wide-spread self-published child porn has become. "Easy money" for teens is aided by Internet companies large and small "wittingly and unwittingly" (the latter including PayPal and Amazon, but non-financial services and technologies are involved too, of course).
(FirstMonday) by Nart Villeneuve. Integrated Mechanisms of Information Control and the Demarcation of Borders in Cyberspace. Increasingly, states are adopting practices aimed at regulating and controlling the Internet as it passes through their borders. Seeking to assert information sovereignty over their cyber-territory, governments are implementing Internet content filtering technology at the national level. The implementation of national filtering is most often conducted in secrecy and lacks openness, transparency, and accountability. Policy-makers are seemingly unaware of significant unintended consequences, such as the blocking of content that was never intended to be blocked. Once a national filtering system is in place, governments may be tempted to use it as a tool of political censorship or as a technological "quick fix" to problems that stem from larger social and political issues.
(Le Monde) Le ministre délégué à la famille et les sept membres de l'Association française des opérateurs mobiles (AFOM) — Bouygues Telecom, Orange, SFR, Debitel, M6 Mobile, Omer Telecom et Universal Mobile — ont signé une charte garantissant un "développement responsable du multimédia mobile". Les opérateurs s'engagent à mettre à la disposition des parents un outil de contrôle parental gratuit facile à activer afin de bloquer l'accès aux sites "de charme", aux sites de rencontres et à Internet. Ils acceptent aussi d'interdire toute offre pour adultes dans leurs portails et dans le kiosque Gallery (le moteur de recherche de l'Internet mobile). Enfin, ils prévoient d'imposer, sur toutes les parties publiques des chats et des blogs de leurs portails et de Gallery, un "modérateur" chargé de surveiller les échanges. Dès novembre, le contrôle sera encore simplifié : lors de l'achat d'un mobile destiné à un adolescent mineur — dans les boutiques, au téléphone ou sur le Web — les opérateurs proposeront aux parents d'activer le contrôle dès l'ouverture de la ligne.
(RAPID) The European Commission approved the amended (proposal by the German telecoms regulator Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) on the market for wholesale broadband access. Following serious doubts expressed by the Commission on 11 November 2005 with regard to the exclusion of VDSL from the market, BNetzA amended its proposal by including it. Broadband access or "bitstream" allows new entrants to provide their own broadband services (such as high speed internet access, internet telephony or IP television) to end-users by controlling the quality of the products to a high degree.
(Cairns Blog) SSRC publishes a new report, Civil Technologies: The Values of Nonprofit ICT Use, by Ken Jordan and Mark Surman (who wrote Commonspace). The report explores exemplary instances of nonprofit ICT adoption by civil society groups from around the world, and draws attention to ways the values of civil society are reinforced and extended through their use of digital tools.
(AFP) From the Internet counter-culture which spawned blogs and podcasts comes the newest thing in new media: vlogging. In short video diaries and homemade reality shows, vloggers are using the power of cheap online technology to invite strangers into their lives. Vlogs are an offshoot of 'blogs', or weblogs - diaries posted on the Internet which sparked a new wave of 'citizen journalism' - and their audio equivalent, podcasting. Vlogging's time has come thanks to a new generation of cheap cameras, editing programs and simple software - plus fast broadband connections needed to download content.
(International Herald Tribune) For Deutsche Telekom, December has brought two potentially strong competitors: the largest German discount supermarket chain, Aldi, and the country's largest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland. Both companies are raising the stakes in the largest European telecommunications market, where Telekom leads in fixed-line, mobile and high-speed Internet service. Aldi began selling prepaid mobile phone service. Kabel Deutschland is investing E500 million, or $600 million, through 2008 to upgrade its cable television lines to sell high-speed Internet service. That is going to raise the heat on Deutsche Telekom, which is one of the most dominant West European former monopolies on its home turf.
(New York Times) Time Warner is expected to announce that it will renew its three-year-old partnership with Google as the provider of search technology. The deal, in which Google will invest $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL, will also significantly expand AOL's advertising opportunities on Google sites, among other things. The turn of events shows just how much Google - hotter now than Netscape was nine years ago - has supplanted Microsoft as the force to be reckoned with in technology. And it raises questions about Microsoft's stated goal of becoming the leader in Internet searching, as well as about its emerging plans to offer more online services under a new brand, Windows Live. see also Google's deal on AOL is Microsoft's setback (New York Times).
(BBC) Many people are likely to be unwrapping digital music players as they gather for the annual present-fest this Christmas. For the record label, the battle is to persuade people to pay for the music they put on their machines. For consumers and critics of the way the music industry is handling the transition to digital music, the battle is to convince them to be a whole lot more radical.
(International Herald Tribune) The subscriber identity module - the tiny, removable computer chip in plastic that the world's billion and a half GSM phones use to store user and account information - is taking on new importance as the mobile phone becomes more versatile. In South Korea and Japan, carriers are putting advanced payment functions right on the SIM. In Europe, Orange is testing a SIM with 128 megabytes of memory - 1,000 times as much as the 128-kilobyte cards currently in use - to hold music and other digital files. And in Italy, Telecom Italia has developed a SIM card for secure payment that can also remotely control television set-top boxes and other electronic devices.
(ZDNet UK) After years of lagging behind other European nations, Britain can now boast more broadband users than the likes of France or Germany. The UK is now Europe's largest broadband market, according to figures released by analyst firm Point Topic. Point Topic reported that there are now 9.8 million high-speed Internet lines in Britain, compared to 9.7 million in France and 8.4 million in Germany, the second and third largest broadband markets in Europe.
(University of Leipzig) Call for papers. "The Rising Power of Search-Engines on the Internet: Impacts on Users, Media Policy, and Media Business" is the title of a scientific workshop (26 June 2006, Berlin Germany) organized by the Chair of International Journalism (University of Dortmund), the Chair of Journalism II (University of Leipzig), and the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (FES). A wide range of topics including media regulation and implications for journalism will be discussed. Search-engines have become the new gatekeepers of the information-age. The goal of the workshop is to bring together European experts in the field of digital gatekeepers, to initiate cross-border research and to discuss current findings. To reach this goal quantitative, qualitative, and experience-based papers from the academic field are invited. First results of the scientific workshop will be integrated into a larger conference on search engines targeting decision makers from media policy and media business on 27 June 2006, also in Berlin. Auf Deutsch
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